Several hours before Game 6 of the World Series, I called a friendly Yankees’ source and asked about the team’s plans for Hideki Matsui, who can be a free agent this month. I inquired because I had been asked to participate with two other reporters in a discussion of Matsui.

We met at a restaurant across the street from Yankee Stadium with a Japanese journalist, Daisuke Sugiura, who was working on a piece about Matsui for Slugger, a Japanese magazine. His timing could not have been more perfect.

In the ensuing hours Matsui powered the Yankees to a 7-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies and the Yankees’ 27th World Series championship.

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PHILADELPHIA – The Yankees’ fan lamented, though not in a way that demonstrated he was distraught, “All we wanted was to have A-Rod up to win the game.”

In the same car on the same Orange line train, the Phillies’ fan announced repeatedly as he walked back and forth, as if to reassure himself that the Phillies had won Game 5 of the World Series, “We’re still alive, baby.” And emphasizing the reason they were still alive, “Chase is the man; he’s the best.”

In a remarkable display of peaceful co-existence, New York and Philadelphia rode the same train in the same car without incident Monday night. The reason was probably easy to figure out.

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PHILADELPHIA – The World Series offers a startling barometer of how critical the health of the newspaper industry is in this country. It’s not yet on life support, but it’s getting there. The latest bleak picture is exhibited in the number of newspapers that are not covering the World Series.

Twenty-nine of the 60 newspapers that cover major league teams during the season on the road as well as at home are not at this year’s World Series.

The commissioner’s office declined to provide a list of absent newspapers, concerned that it would provide a negative commentary on Major League Baseball.

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